no human being is illegal
solidarity | 09.05.2006 13:58 | Migration | World
NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL
The waves of immigrant refugees that come to Cyprus face brutal exploitation, class, racial and sexist oppression and constitute a constant target of racist and repressive attacks.
Most of them are used as a cheap labour force in harsh manual labour jobs and constitute a kind of contemporary dispensable slaves, necessary for the capitalist model of economic development.
Thousands of women migrants are lead to prostitution with the tolerance and participation of our conservative society and the institutions that supposedly have the duty to protect them – government, police and judicial system.
The Cypriot state in cooperation with the British authorities has assumed an important police role in the area and enforces with particular zeal the vision of “Fortress Europe” that has been planned with immense hypocrisy by the leaderships of our countries. In addition, the Cypriot government delays to enforce the European directive that defines long-term residence immigrants as eligible to remain in the territory under the control of the E.U.
The policy that is being enforced in the migration issue is based on a complex bureaucratic system of legalization, insufficient minimum wage, humiliation and harassment by the police in large scale operations, imprisonment and deportations.
Journalists who blame the immigrants for the increase of criminal activities come to worsen the existing climate by creating the necessary social consensus for the continuation of the current regime of terror, the exclusion of those made redundant from production and the disciplining and subordination of the rest.
We are not surprised by the revolt of the immigrant detainees in the area of the Central Prisons on 4th May 2006. These people have been under illegal detention in police prisons without trial for a long time period essentially without any potential prospect for the resolution of their problem.
We stand in solidarity to the protest of the asylum seekers in Eleftheria Square that begun on the 8th May 2006. We support their demands for
- employment
- housing
- medical and pharmaceutical care
- examination of their cases by a government commission independent from the police
- access to lawyers and independent translators that are not related to the embassies of their countries.
These demands are not outside the framework of basic human rights, which are enshrined in international and European conventions. We demand the end of secret as well as “voluntary” deportations and the permission of long term residence for political refugees in Cyprus.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ALL THE DETAINED - ASYLUM SEEKERS
LEGALISATION NOW
The waves of immigrant refugees that come to Cyprus face brutal exploitation, class, racial and sexist oppression and constitute a constant target of racist and repressive attacks.
Most of them are used as a cheap labour force in harsh manual labour jobs and constitute a kind of contemporary dispensable slaves, necessary for the capitalist model of economic development.
Thousands of women migrants are lead to prostitution with the tolerance and participation of our conservative society and the institutions that supposedly have the duty to protect them – government, police and judicial system.
The Cypriot state in cooperation with the British authorities has assumed an important police role in the area and enforces with particular zeal the vision of “Fortress Europe” that has been planned with immense hypocrisy by the leaderships of our countries. In addition, the Cypriot government delays to enforce the European directive that defines long-term residence immigrants as eligible to remain in the territory under the control of the E.U.
The policy that is being enforced in the migration issue is based on a complex bureaucratic system of legalization, insufficient minimum wage, humiliation and harassment by the police in large scale operations, imprisonment and deportations.
Journalists who blame the immigrants for the increase of criminal activities come to worsen the existing climate by creating the necessary social consensus for the continuation of the current regime of terror, the exclusion of those made redundant from production and the disciplining and subordination of the rest.
We are not surprised by the revolt of the immigrant detainees in the area of the Central Prisons on 4th May 2006. These people have been under illegal detention in police prisons without trial for a long time period essentially without any potential prospect for the resolution of their problem.
We stand in solidarity to the protest of the asylum seekers in Eleftheria Square that begun on the 8th May 2006. We support their demands for
- employment
- housing
- medical and pharmaceutical care
- examination of their cases by a government commission independent from the police
- access to lawyers and independent translators that are not related to the embassies of their countries.
These demands are not outside the framework of basic human rights, which are enshrined in international and European conventions. We demand the end of secret as well as “voluntary” deportations and the permission of long term residence for political refugees in Cyprus.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ALL THE DETAINED - ASYLUM SEEKERS
LEGALISATION NOW
solidarity